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The
new release of the top-secret cabinet documents from 1990
brought back a flood of memories for this reporter and the nation-shaking days that led to the collapse of the Meech Lake accord. It was a heck of a time to be working in Ottawa, and my beats back then were the constitution and the Liberals. Mementoes of that time are still all around me here in the office.

For instance, that picture above is a framed front page I keep on the wall by my desk, and it dates from June 12, 1990. It was the first day of the Globe and Mail's huge redesign and the prime minister, in the heat of the effort to save the Meech Lake constitutional accord, had given The Globe an interview. (It was also my birthday on June 11, so it was also kind of a memorable birthday, starting it in the den at 24 Sussex and all.)

If you look really hard at the middle of the page, you see a story:
Marathon talks were all part of plan, PM says
. Mulroney told us that he had long known Meech was going to come down to last-minute negotiations and a "roll of the dice" would be necessary.

As soon as that story was published, Mulroney suffered huge blowback -- and so did Meech. Roll-the-dice may well have helped make Meech more unpopular than it already was in the weeks before the accord died, unratified by the provinces.

I had sort of forgotten, until today, how Mulroney had tried to deny the story. Quite vociferously, in fact. But then came the release of the cabinet documents from that tumultuous time, and look what I found in there.

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"False"??? What? Mulroney actually told his cabinet that the story was wrong? And then I also remembered: of course he did. I remember phoning Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells for reaction to the story on June 12 and he told me that the PM had already called him, as soon as the Globe came out that morning, to assure him the story was wrong. That, to put it mildly, was a frustrating conversation.This denial went on for weeks, I remember, even as Meech was crashing and burning and I was in Calgary, covering the Liberal leadership convention that led to the election of Jean Chretien.

I am relieved to report, though, the passage of time has clarified Mr. Mulroney's recollection of the interview. That "false" word he used with his cabinet and Wells is no longer what he has to say about roll the dice.

When his very excellent Memoirs were released a few years back (I highly recommend them, by the way -- they are the best prime ministerial memoirs I've ever read) I immediately went to see how he treated the contentious interview. There, around page 786-87, Mulroney -- graciously -- takes full blame for the remark. Here, you can see for yourself:

So all's well that ends well, and I have to say, not all politicians would admit they were wrong this way. For a few minutes today, though, that 1990 drama felt like it happened yesterday.

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